Yvonne Lee Odom, president of the Delray Beach Community Development Corporation (CDC), urged the City Commission on Sept. 3 to accelerate permitting and provide regulatory accommodations to help the nonprofit deliver workforce and affordable homeownership in historically Black neighborhoods.

Odom described the CDC’s "We Are Home" project, which partners with national builders such as Pulte and Lennar to develop homes affordable to Delray families by using county down‑payment assistance; she said finished homes can sell for roughly $170,000 to eligible buyers after assistance. The CDC has acquired narrow, deep lots in the city’s SET (historically Black) neighborhoods, and Odom said standard lot setbacks and corner‑lot requirements make it difficult for large builders’ model plans to fit those parcels.

Odom said the CDC has ready buyers—including local teachers and a high‑school coach—and projects stalled in the permit pipeline since May. She asked the commission to create flexibility so the CDC can build new homes on existing lots and to avoid long delays that jeopardize deals with builders who have limited pricing windows.

The CDC president requested help on three fronts: faster permit review, administrative flexibility on lot setback accommodations for narrow lots, and city coordination to finalize financial gap funding (county down‑payment assistance has been leveraged). She said the projects carry no direct cost to the city and are intended to preserve homeownership for workforce residents.

Commissioners thanked Odom for the presentation and asked staff to review the permit queue and identify bottlenecks; staff told the commission they are prepared to expedite applications and to discuss potential administrative waivers consistent with code and public process.

No formal action was taken; the commission asked staff to review the outstanding applications for the CDC and report back with options to accelerate permitting and to identify potential technical code changes that could be handled administratively.